ahora vamos a contar

i've been doing some blog-browsing and it seems like a lot of first-year teachers have very different experiences from mine. so far, i've found one person who quit and another who was on the brink, both of whom were/are extremely stressed out and medicated. i'm definitely in my comfort zone aside from the changes and adaptations that one would expect from being in a new school environment. i'm relatively friendly with my co-workers and most everyone at least knows as the new 1st grade bilingual teacher if they don't know me by name. since my school doesn't have a lot of social activities, i don't feel particularly left out of anything, and my team always makes a point of sitting together at meetings and trainings.

i'm going to list what i consider to be my strengths and weaknesses as a new teacher... might be a good way to do some self-reflection every month for the remainder of this academic year.

Strengths

Strong and consistent discipline/behavior management

Lots of support & attention from my administration, curriculum specialists, and teammates

Good organization

Beginning integration of ESL into daily routines

Attempting to create better contacts and communication with K and 2nd grade bilingual teachers

Giving students basic skills in terms of writing and mathematical thinking that they weren't taught last semester

Weaknesses

No bilingual support aside from administration and one curriculum specialist

Overzealous and hyperparanoid parents drive me UP THE FUCKING WALL

Somewhat undecisive as to best way to target my students who at the most risk of being held back (I'm going to start daily guided reading and tutoring this week, we'll see how that goes)

Still need to work on becoming better aligned with the other 1st grade classes (both of which are monolingual... but no one has really said anything about my diverging so I don't know how important this is to anyone else)

Undecisive about best way to manage word study with so many needs in the classroom... I may work this into guided reading groups in the next week

Letting my kids use the bathroom all the time! We have restrictions during carpet time which dictate no water or bathroom privileges unless it's emergency, but these kids swear they have two or three emergencies per day, and since I've already had two children pee on themselves I'm hesitant to get hardcore about this.

Totally unrelated, I finally got my first paycheck today. Fuck you, government, for taking away 1/5 of my measly monthly earnings. FUCK YOUUUUU!!!

i made it through the day just fine and without caffeine, but after spending an hour and a half after school cleaning up and starting to get ready for next week's hecticness (new science and social studies units, guided reading AND literacy and math center implementation) i am totally exhausted. but no time for napping... a friend is coming from out of town for her xmas present: i got us tickets to a concert tonight, so i need to perk up immediately. followed by usual post-concert debauchery, followed by a trip to IKEA tomorrow, followed by more debauchery, followed by sleeping late on sunday and then spending all day back at school planning and prepping. monday is staff development. have a good weekend, and don't do anything i wouldn't do unless you plan on giving me all the juicy details =P

i just got home from seeing a fellow teacher's band play. two other kinder teachers were in attendance, so i guess we'll see who has the biggest circles under their eyes in the morning. i have to wake up in five hours and figure out what the hell we're doing for the day. i feel so old and lame. blech.

up until 9 am this morning, i LIKED teacher trainings. i thought it was a great way to spend a paid workday away from my kids while making sure they weren't losing learning time. now i realize it's a great way to convince me that i will never become a veteran teacher because they are fucking annoying as all hell. I'm not big on any public or semi-public forum where one or two self-proclaimed experts wank off about something, but i'm particularly peeved when i'm stuck with such folk in a small room with my professional peers for several hours in a row. and they are sitting on either side of me. and it's sad because i like hearing other people's stories about teaching, i like hearing about interesting experiences, but i suppose i should emphasize that i like hearing about interesting experiences that have a point, which is the opposite of the drivel that i was drowned in today.

first of all, it is not "visa versa". secondly, if you can neither use nor pronounce "myopic" correctly, perhaps you should cut it out of your vocabulary or restrict its usage to your home or around close non-judgemental friends. thirdly, do not take personal offense just because i think Sandra Cisneros is totally obnoxious. if you can relate to her fluff that's fine with me, but i think as far as Chicana (and certainly "ethnic writers" in general) she's at the bottom of the barrel and that's my fucking right to believe whatever the fuck i want. don't get pissy and demand that i cite specific examples of text which explain why i don't like her writing. I JUST FUCKING DON'T.

so yeah, i'm a little annoyed. my next training is in two weeks. classroom management. lord help me.

remember how one of my students had his house burn down? today we went to the library for the first time since it happened, and the librarian told me

"a fire, isn't that horrible? and he had SIX books! but at least he's okay."

what the FUCK. it's generally very easy to read my emotions, so i hope my face conveyed the utter disgust and astonishment that her comment provoked.

Subcomandante Marcos (those of you not familiar with the Zapatistas may want to read this) wrote and published a children's book in 1996. Well, more or less. I was browsing the central library's Spanish section on Friday for bilingual books about colors and ran across one titled "The Story of Colors/La Historia de los Colores". I pulled it out and glanced at the cover. "By Subcomandante Marcos"... What?!? I opened it up to read the dust jacket, and sure enough, there's a dude with a ski mask and ammo strapped across his shoulder. I don't know any details about the publication process with this book, but apparently the text for the book was taken from a 1994 communiqué from Marcos to the Mexican people. Qué raro.

One of my teacher buddies and fellow bloggers came over yesterday for lunch and we discussed the wild world of blogs that we've suddenly become involved in. We've stumbled onto several frighteningly conservative education blogs, a few quasi-racist teacher blogs, and some just plain annoying ones. Sadly, despite several searches, I haven't found another bilingual ed blog, just a few ESL teachers. Most teacher blogs also seem to be written by secondary teachers... where are my elementary people at?!? If you know of any blogs that I might be able to relate to a bit more, please link away. I find myself reading mommy blogs (try the hilarious Suburban Bliss and Dooce) for my funny kid story fix.

how stupid can you get? and what on earth are you doing socializing with 17-yr-olds???

so don't tell anyone, but we didn't really do language arts today. it's our little secret, okay? we did a lot of ORAL review of science content, then a lot of artistic depiction followed by a lot of cutting, taping, and gluing. about 1/3 of my class typed stuff they had written earlier in the week while the rest started writing in a book that summarizes all their panda knowledge. it wasn't UNacademic, but it certainly wouldn't have made me look good from an administrator's standpoint. in math, my students impressed me by quickly figuring out several grouping problems and they ALL ended the day with excellent behavior. INSERT JAW DROP HERE. my slow-as-a-slug worker even did ALL of his work for the day AND had good behavior, earning him a fabulous day rating. i'm gonna say it again: i love my class!

today was as interesting as yesterday was good and satisfying. before dawn on monday morning, one of my students (who lives in a trailer park that houses many of my kids) watched his home and everything in it burn down. today he came back to school and we spent the morning routine time talking about what happened to him and his family. luckily, everyone got out unharmed but he literally has nothing anymore--yet has an amazing attitude and seems totally unphased. kids are amazing sometimes. parents, on the other hand, still piss me the fuck off. watching this student go through so much with such grace makes everyone else's problems seem uber-trivial, so i was less than enthusiastic when a "problem mom" marched in this morning asking to talk to me in private. i stuck firm to the decision i made with the asst. principal to not allow pushy moms to take up learning time, but i think that just pissed her off even more. she was up in arms about the maldicion drama from yesterday, but hopefully i got it all resolved today with a little patient (if not silently annoyed) listening and a talk with the kid in question.

science fair is drawing dangerously near, so we drew actual scale pandas and made big bamboo plants. sometimes i wish we had more time for fluff like drawing and singing, i really miss it sometimes. my cell phone went off in class (i have a selena ringer) and the kiddos went CRAZY. i gotta remember to bring that CD to class to bribe them on bad days.

anyway, so my favorite parts of the day happened in the afternoon during our pre-assembly hecticness. kids were coloring the pandas on the carpet area, and my clumsy ass tripped over a pencil box, sending crayons flying all over the place. one of my kids shrieked "¡ay maestra!" with what i think was a 6-year-old's version of disdain, but another just gave me the world's biggest hug, as if to say "I don't care if you're unable to walk straight, i still love you and think you're the bomb." then a bit later, my "behavior problem" gave me a picture of a bamboo plant with a heart over it that said "amor". i confirmed that it was for me, and asked him if i could give him a hug. he wouldn't let go. strange. i'm beginning to think i might have made a connection with him. how bizarre.

the assembly was totally idiotic, i cannot believe the dumbass stuff teachers are subjected to for the supposed benefit of schoolchildren. i wanted to go to sleep SO BADLY. once it was over, i rushed my kids through a quick dismissal then ran to a bilingual teacher training that left me with a million questions about how to do ESL and how to transition my students into english. and i think i might have networked a little bit. this teaching life is getting a little surreal.

i will leave school early every day this week. if i use my planning time wisely and can FINALLY get these kids to work independently, then there will be no need for me to stay an extra 1.5-2 hours a day. i don't mind coming in on weekends for a couple hours to prep for the whole week, but now that things are getting settled i want to have more me time. i want to paint, see old friends, join a gym, BAKE... do the stuff i haven't done in years, and be able to do it on a daily basis.

my kids had an awesome morning. behavior was fantastic right up until i had to leave to test a kid and someone had to cover my class. during recess, one of my kids was feeling left out (again) so we swung together. another kid told me that adults weren't supposed to play. it's sad how serious children perceive us to be, how surprised they are when we laugh, change our nail color, or act silly. my kids started complaining about some students using bad words, so we cut math short and said one good thing about one other person in the class. my kids were in agreement that my pants were very nice, i guess that was their compliment for me. i'm pleasantly surprised to find that i really really really love my class. initially i had certain kids picked out as annoying, whiny, or generally unpleasant students, but once you train 'em for awhile there's quite a bit of good in each of them. my whiners and screamers are learning to raise their hands and wait more patiently, my lazy workers are starting to do their work on a daily basis (with only a few proddings! gasp!), my behavior issues are getting much more mild, and the perpetually silent girls are starting to talk more regularly. and to add extra glean to my rose-colored glasses, my principal left me a very sweet note proclaiming me to be a shining star for my hard work while preparing for today's awards assembly. and a pack of star-shaped post-its, and i think it goes without saying that fancy post-its are the shit. today was a very good day.

even though today is a school holiday, i spent 4.5 hours in my classroom recording middle-of-year assessment data and getting ready for this week. last week, i set up my district email all by myself so now i'm in tune with all the school/district happenings. my principal was very happy to discover that i took care of things myself... SO happy, in fact, that today she sent me and the speech therapist/school computer authority an email stating the following:

"You are the bomb!"

Aw shucks... I think I'm gonna have to print that out, highlight that line, and stick it on my bulletin board as a little reminder of my obvious badassness. Fellow teachers, I ask you one simple question: Has YOUR principal told YOU that you're the bomb?

Didn't think so. One point for the newbie. BOO YEAH.

Grr.

...but in other educational news, here's something to consider. three of my kids insisted they had bathroom emergencies during the 20-min assembly yesterday. do you have any idea how bad it make me look when 1/6 of my class leaves during the middle of one of those things?

in my infinite dorkiness, i'm struggling to stay awake on a friday night. several teacher buddies are learning to play texas hold 'em while i take it easy on the couch with a laptop. i'm resting up for a movie later tonight, or at least that's what i'm telling myself.

i can't believe how fast this week has gone by. i brought bamboo plants to the class, one for each table and two for the class. my kids LOVE them. this unit on pandas has been a big hit. we still haven't started centers yet... i'm waiting for them to get all of our daily routines down pat first before i introduce anything else. after a couple meetings with the reading and curriculum specialists, i've got a much better sense of the areas in which i need to focus, AND i taught what i thought was a FABULOUS math lesson yesterday. my kids think it's hysterical when i act nonsensical (or, more realistically, my depiction of a first grader) and there's mad participation.

so... so far, so good. we made it through our first fire drill, and now assemblies are upon us. but first, a three-day weekend. praise the lord.

i find myself lecturing my students on the STUPIDEST things. for example:

when washing your hands, press down on the bottle pump ONCE. not twice, not five times, ONCE. it is not even remotely reasonable for 20 students to go through an entire bottle of soap in a day and a half. and you know what? if there's a line for the sink, use the antibacterial stuff. same difference.

attention boys: pee IN the toilet. not around it, not next to it, not across from it. IN it.

WE DO NOT SCREAM IN CLASS. EVER. and if you ARE going to scream, do NOT scream maestra; it will only get you a dirty look and the same old response: WE DO NOT SCREAM IN CLASS.

appropriate behavior while walking in line. usually followed by some line-walking practice around campus.

appropriate behavior while sitting on the carpet.

don't steal my stuff. especially my stamps. don't write on my stuff. don't rip my stuff. ever.

also turns out that when i'm gone for a day, they forget everything we've established, from the get-out-your-homework-then-sit-down-and-read-for-15-minutes routine first thing in the morning to expected behaviors during individual work time. however, they really like it when i do my ghetto-meets-chilango voice (we read "Chato y la cena" by Gary Soto, whose title character is a hardcore vato) and whenever we spot pandas. so at least we can be sure i'm not making them stupider. yay for that. we'll see how my forgetful little wiggly worms do on the fire drill friday. i'm praying they at least make it out to the right part of the school.

training (no school + well-equipped substitute + 8:30 starting time) + teacher buddy happy hour = happiness

what was supposed to be a terrible day ended up being quite nice. morning duty was a breeze, my off-the-cuff lessons were once again a huge success, i had some good chats with the reading and curriculum specialists, and i didn't have to attend the staff meeting. my bloodwork was done quickly, the gap had my favorite jeans on sale, and since i have training tomorrow i got to see sideways and i can stay up LATE (although i'm tired and will likely crash soon, but it's nice to wake up an extra hour later, even TWO if i want!).

the only thing is, everyone thinks i'm super organized and awesome. while i am indeed awesome, if anyone asks to see lesson plans i'm kind of fucked. so tomorrow's bonus time needs to be well spent. i honestly think i can teach my students all the first grade core content without using the district's curriculum guide, i just don't know how that will fly with everyone else. veremos.

yesterday i left school at 3:20. insert jaw drop here. granted, i went in for a few hours today, but i really thought i would be staying late every day in addition to weekend visits. i really like being in my room by myself, tidying up and doing all the little things i don't have time for when the kids are there. today my parents came up to take care of some property business, but they stopped by school first to see my classroom for the first time. my dad walked in and asked me why the hell everything was in spanish. shouldn't the language of instruction be english so they learn faster? i asked him where he was while i was in college and he responded by saying he just wanted to know where his tax dollars were going. to this pillow, so students can lie down while they read? to all these colorful bulletin boards and visual aids? to these fancy pointers with every letter of the alphabet? yes. but not to my salary, dad. why the hell, indeed.

my mom was quite useful. as dad assembled an organizer, she sharpened pencils and put my classroom library in order, something i wanted to do but don't have the energy to, knowing full well the kids will tear it up on monday. at least it looks nice for right now. monday morning i have cafeteria duty and after school we have our first all-staff meeting of the year. it will be a very long day, and tuesday i should be out all day for training. a friend of mine is subbing so she can actually teach some content for me. i went to the library so i could find some videos and books for her to use in conjunction with both language arts and ESL and the guy at the help desk had a blogger shirt. weirdness.

to backtrack a bit, my first week went pretty well. friday behavior was MUCH better, and i keep adding things to my arsenal of reward systems. now we are tracking individual, small group, AND class behavior... friday i decided to integrate behavior and mathematics by rewarding tables with 100% good behavior or instruction-following with a compliment stick. the table that accumulates the most compliment sticks by the end of the day wins a sticky note on our gráfico de super mesas. the table that gets the most sticky notes in one month gets some prize, something currently undecided but that will definitely be fabulous from the pov of a six year old. i've got some free pizza gift certificates and placed a large order with oriental trading co. things should turn out pretty spiffy. on an academic level, i feel that week one has definitely been challenging for them, but they are ready to be challenged after so many weeks of fluff. i gave them a fairly complicated word problem that integrated science knowledge and required them to sort through a lot of information, and we solved it as a group very quickly and with a lot of great explanations from the kids. today i went through their science and math journals to see how they've been doing individually, and unfortunately it seems like i've got several kids struggling with math. i can't tell if it's a cognitive issue or just severe distraction messing with them, but i need to get to the bottom of it soon. i'm starting to lay a lot of responsibility on parents now too... if their kids can't produce anything in the two hours i give them in class, then they need to start doing it at home. i think that's fair given how open-ended (or just plain easy) my assignments have been so far. while most of my chamacos are ready to learn, there's still a few that were probably much happier when school was mostly play and hardly work.

today was a better day. no parent drama in the morning whatsoEVER and i was large and in charge in the afternoon... one of my kids refused to do shit today, so i had a letter ready for his mom at pickup, chatted with her for a bit about his behavior after school, then had a very productive phone conversation with her a little while later. AND... one of the pushier parents from yesterday brought me piping hot homemade corn tortillas. sigh. i'll be totally honest... that kid's getting all As! =P

speaking of grades, it is absolutely astonishing to me how long first graders can take to finish an assignment. today we started a review of mammals to lead into our science fair research project on pandas. the kids' task was to write an ENTIRE page about everything they know about animals. some finished an entire page (between 5-12 sentences) in about half an hour. others literally took over 1.5 hours of time over the course of the day to write half a page. this pace is maddening to me, especially since a six-yr-old's attention span is super short to begin with. there are such huge discrepancies in their ability, more so in this class than i have seen in all my experiences observing other primary and secondary grades (haven't made it to the high school level though, so i'm sure it's worse there). for example, several students are clueless as to the daily math problems we have, which so far have all be addition and only require them to explain their solution using words, pictures, and numbers. again, it takes some 15 minutes while for others 1 hour is not sufficient. i need to start having lots of extra/busy work on hand at all times. differentiation can be such a pain in the ass.

oh, and some of you might enjoy this: another kid had an accident today. that's two in three days. yup, i'm good!

now granted, i was at my school the last week of classes and then put in another 40 or so hours of prep time before classes officially started this week. but i already feel like i've been there FOREVER. as you might have noticed, i had a bad morning, but things got slightly better as i got over my bitchiness toward the other teacher and i talked to my wonderful asst. principal about my pain in the ass parents.

a quick summary of the first 48 hours of my 1st grade teaching career:

first graders have to pee ALL THE FREAKING TIME

one of my kids had an accident (the pee pee kind) after an hour of being in my class

therefore it's hard to limit their trips to the bathroom

there is absolutely no record of ANY interventions done with ANY of my students. i already have three major referrals in the works for our school's committee that deals with things of this nature: two are behavior related, the other may be a candidate for either special ed or speech

one of my kiddos that i'm referring set off the fire alarm during their interim time with a sub. he's six. fuckin' a

i am the official 1st grade PTA representative. dammit dammit dammit DAMMIT. right now, the last thing i want to do is spend MORE time with these freakin crazyass parents.

teaching makes me curse much more outside of school

i'm horrible about keeping track of my students' stuff. i accidentally took a kid's $5 bill home and lost someone's lip gloss necklace. oops.

lesson plans are highly overrated. and i'm quite good at doing things off the cuff with the young'uns.

30 minutes is totally not enough time for lunch

sometimes administrators make your life a breeze

we did not have a good day today. we are having serious problems paying attention, following directions, and raising our freaking hands before we freaking speak. we sat together on the carpet and did a shared writing of carpet rules, which include sitting properly (legs crossed, hands in front, eyes on the speaker), NOT asking to use the bathroom, NOT playing, and participating. as we worked together to write good sentences and sound out words, several students asked to use the bathroom or get a drink of water, lounged on the off-limits beanbags, and even turned their back to me. ahem. what rules are we writing again? PAY ATTENTION MOCOSOS.

i'm actually totally not that hostile. i think i do a little too much emotional talk, like after lunch when my students received a red cup for bad behavior, i told them it made me very sad that they could not behave properly at lunch. that humbled them right quick. i think maybe if i start crying soon they might just be perfect. i hope tomorrow they give me a reason to be nicer. i don't like playing viola swamp.

a) my kids' parents are fucking CRAZY and have way too much time on their hands. they are also very rude and make comments and criticisms of the other students in from of them. i need to get a handle on this shit asap.

b) i'm already dealing with money-related bullshit. my room, which was filled with CRAP when i arrived, is now nice and orderly because i removed three carts worth of assorted english shit OUT (bilingual classrooms don't need english resources from the 1970s, thank you). today i got a quasi-lecture about the stuff that i get rid of, because if i don't inventory every last inch of stuff, then whatever might be registered under my name will be deducted from the grade fund. i UNDERSTAND that is shitty for all of us, but seriously, the vast majority of the stuff i got rid of was total shit and even IF i overlooked some materials, there is no way in hell the total costs will be significant. grr. is this what everyone was warning me about???

i've been waking up at 5:15 a.m. even on professional development day, i was still up by 6. i don't really know WHY i'm waking up so fucking early... maybe because my medication has suddenly given me dandruff and i want plenty of time in the mornings in case i need to shower twice to make my hair presentable. maybe because i'm paranoid and slightly spastic. maybe because it really IS necessary for me to be at school every day by 7. or maybe it's because i know that i'm not going to be following my lesson plans so i need to pull shit out of my ass as early as possible.

but go ahead and start betting on how long you think this will last. my poor body can't stand going to bed before eleven, no matter how hard i try to coax it. but waking up at 5 is a bit brutal.

...was more or less a breeze. given the weird state of affairs with my class (no actual content taught in 3-7 weeks --no one really knows when the teacher started slacking, but she NEVER did guided reading--, no gradebook for me to refer to, and no record of any student misbehaviors/problems/issues), i've got TONS of flexibility and the whole administration has recognized that these first few weeks are all about establishing authority and introducing and maintaining routines and expectations. the kiddos were angelitos for the first hour of school before specials, then slowly got rowdier and less attentive. such is the nature of six-yr-olds. by the end of the day, all progress i had made had all but flown out the window. we'll be spending lots of time on our afternoon "routine" tomorrow... apparently 40 minutes was not enough for us to gather homework folders, pass out papers, clean up, and do our weekly raffle. sad.

on a particularly good note, i don't feel all that stressed. i think i'll find my groove much sooner than i thought. and i've already started discussing actions to take regarding my... well, let's not bullshit, my problem children. i've got two so far, one of whom i wasn't expecting. there was another child whose name has come up, but i think with a little redirection he'll be just fine. i've also got a kid who i'm sensing some issues with... probably speech and maybe some special needs, but it's only been one day that i've worked with him so it'll take some time to figure out his strengths and weaknesses. sadly, my school has no bilingual special ed nor speech services, so if he does eventually get recommended, he'll have to leave if his parents opt for services. overall, it was a good day. to end on a bitterly funny note, my known "special child" drew a pistol. on the back of a letter he was writing to his grandmother (he got as far as "Querida Abuelita... Te quiero." then BAM! with the illustration. NICE.). my kids were also very excited about my foam soap that smells like apples. i'm beginning to think first graders rock, even when they're bad.

classroom pictures will be taken this week. i think i did a good job.

i sat down at my desk to start working on report cards and suddenly i'm blogging instead. what's wrong with this picture?

okay, i made an executive decision in the fifteen minutes since i wrote that last sentence as i fought with my computer to print out my letter to parents: i do not have a blue pen that matches the previously written text on the report cards, therefore i cannot do them right now. i also do not have art or p.e. grades so that helps since i don't want to sit down and do this shit again.

first day on the job. we had a short reading training followed by extensive math discussions. i'm amazed at the new sticky-notes-in-reading trend, it's catching on like wildfire. i am also amazed at how slowly time passes while you're sitting in a training. there are not enough lists to make, not enough things to doodle, not enough silly thoughts to think.

i think i've got almost everything i need. my computer login hasn't come in yet and my mailbox doesn't have my name on it yet (but at least they took off the old teacher's name), but otherwise i'm good to go for the week... as far as i can tell right now. i think i'm skipping science all together tomorrow so we can go over homework routines and the mountain of paperwork they're taking home for their parents to look at. this week is all about establishing procedures and letting the kids know that i'm not taking any crap. there hasn't been a whole lot of actual learning going on for at least two months now... if these kids want to make it to second grade, we've got some ass to bust.